California school district locked for massacre threat

April 20, 2007

YUBA CITY, Calif. (AP) -- A 12,000-student school district was locked down Thursday as authorities searched for a man they say threatened to make the Virginia Tech-style massacre look "mild by comparison." Schools in Yuba City and neighboring Marysville in Northern California tightened security while police searched for Jeffery Thomas Carney, 28. Carney had told a pastor in Yuba City on Wednesday night that he planned a mass killing, authorities said. "He had some sort of explosive device and he was going to make the incident at Virginia Tech look mild by comparison," Sutter County Sheriff Jim Denney said. "Our main emphasis, and I can't stress this enough, is to find this suspect." Carney told the First United Methodist Church pastor and some family members that he had an automatic weapon and poison, and hoped to be killed by police as he carried out an assault, authorities said. He made no specific threat against any particular location, the department said. Authorities said Carney is homeless but previously lived in Yuba City, about 35 miles north of Sacramento. He was arrested in February and again April 4 on domestic violence allegations, Denney said. School officials said in a post on the district's Web site that schools were being locked down. The move affected 17 schools and 12,000 students. Schools in the neighboring Marysville district were locked down as a precaution. Yuba Community College remained open, but on heightened security. The threat followed a week of lockdowns and evacuations at schools around the country in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting massacre. Meanwhile, classes were canceled Thursday at Catholic High School near Ann Arbor after police found the words "Virginia Tech today" written on a bathroom wall. Wash-tenaw County Sheriff Daniel Minzey said police had identified the student or students responsible and would seek criminal charges.